Visual Learning teaches with pictures, narration and hands-on labs. This policy explains what the site collects, why, who can see it, how long it is kept, and what you can ask for. In short: the site collects only what it needs to run your account and your classes, shows no advertising, uses no third-party tracking or analytics services, and never sells or rents personal information.
Effective November 10, 2026. Visual Learning is run by Mike Quinn, doing business as Visual Learning ("we", "us"). A limited liability company is being formed to run Visual Learning. When it is registered, it takes over these terms and this page will name it.
What we collect
- Your account: your name, email address, whether you signed up as a learner or a teacher, and your password, which is stored only as a one-way scrambled form (a "hash") that nobody can read back.
- Student accounts, which a teacher creates: a display name, a username and a password. Students never give an email address, birth date, address or phone number.
- Learning records: which lesson sections you have watched, your quiz answers and scores, and when you were last active.
- Messages: class chat, private messages between a teacher and a student, messages to the site team, "Remind my teacher" requests, and reports of messages.
- Payments: card payments are handled entirely by Stripe on Stripe's own pages. We never see or store card numbers. We keep only what Stripe tells us to run your plan: a customer and subscription reference, the plan, its status, the renewal date and the number of classroom seats.
- Mail we send: for each message (for example a password reset), who it went to, the subject, when, and whether it was delivered. The text of a delivered message is not kept.
- Technical information: your network (IP) address is used briefly, in memory only, to slow down password guessing and bulk sign-ups. It is not stored in the database. The server may record technical errors for troubleshooting.
We do not collect your location, contacts, camera or microphone.
How we use it
- To run your account: sign-in, password resets, confirming your email address.
- To teach: remembering where you are in a lesson, scoring quizzes, showing your progress.
- To run classrooms: showing a teacher the progress and scores of their own students, and carrying messages.
- To bill subscriptions and classroom seats through Stripe.
- To keep the site safe: blocking abuse, reviewing reported messages, fixing errors.
We send only messages about your account (such as password resets and email confirmation). We do not send advertising, and we do not use your information to build advertising profiles.
Who can see it
- You see your own account, progress and messages.
- A teacher sees the names, usernames, progress, quiz answers and scores of the students in their own classes, the class chat, and their private messages with those students. Teachers never see other teachers' students.
- Students see their teacher's announcements and, when the teacher allows it, the class chat. Students can never send each other private messages.
- The site team (the operator) runs the site and can reach its database to keep it working. We read a private conversation only when someone reports a message in it, and only while that report is open, or when the law requires it.
Who we share it with
We never sell, rent or trade personal information. We share it only with the services that run the site, only as far as each needs:
- Stripe processes payments (stripe.com/privacy).
- Our hosting provider, Akamai (Linode), runs the servers in the United States where the site, its database and its mail server live. Our own mail server sends the site's messages.
We may disclose information if the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or as part of a transfer of the site to a new operator (for example the company named above), who would be bound by this policy.
Cookies and storage
The site uses only what it needs to work. There are no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics. Any measurement of how the site is used is done by the site itself, on our own servers, and is never shared with or sold to anyone.
- Sign-in cookie: keeps you signed in, for up to 30 days of inactivity.
- Form protection cookie: stops other sites from submitting forms in your name.
- Settings kept in your browser (not sent to us): light or dark theme, music volume, whether you have seen a lab's guided tour, and, when you are not signed in, the last section you watched.
Children and schools
Individual accounts are for people 13 or older. Children under 13 can use Visual Learning only through an account their teacher creates for school use. A teacher who creates student accounts tells us they do so for their school's educational purposes, with the school's authorization and any consent the school requires. In that role we use student information only to provide the service to the school, under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA):
- Students need no email address and give no contact information.
- Student accounts never see prices, advertising or offers. A locked lesson only lets them remind their teacher.
- Student messages never become clickable links, and students cannot message each other privately.
- We use student information only to provide and improve the service for the school. We never use it for advertising and never sell it.
- A teacher can delete a student's account at any time, which deletes the student's progress, quiz answers, messages and requests. A parent or guardian can ask the teacher or the school, or contact us, to review or delete a student's information.
If we learn that a child under 13 signed up for an individual account on their own, we delete it.
How long we keep it
- Account and learning records: while the account exists.
- Messages: while the class or the account exists. A message a teacher removes is hidden from the chat; its text is kept so a report about it can still be reviewed, and is deleted with the class or the account.
- Deleting a student or an archived class deletes its records, messages and chat at once.
- Payment records that the law requires us to keep (for taxes and accounting) are kept as long as required.
- The database is backed up every night and backups are kept for 14 days, so deleted information is gone from every backup within 14 days.
Your choices and rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to show you, correct, export or delete your personal information. Change your password on your account page; for anything else, write to us (below) and we will answer within 30 days. We may need to confirm the request comes from the account holder. Closing an account deletes its information as described above. We will not treat you differently for asking. You can cancel a subscription at any time from your account page ("Manage billing").
Security
The site uses encrypted connections (HTTPS), stores passwords only as hashes, limits repeated sign-in attempts, keeps payment details with Stripe, and keeps secrets such as payment keys encrypted on the server. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your information, we will tell you as the law requires.
Changes
If we change this policy, the new version is posted here with a new effective date. If a change matters for how your information is used, we tell account holders by email before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions, requests or concerns: [email protected], or see the contact page.